Free plans? Open source plans?

Ernest Christley wrote:
cavalamb himself wrote:

Almost ALL experimental Amateur built airplanes would qualify as open
source...


Truer words have never been spoken.

I don't know what sockpuppet61 has against enthusiast checking over and
correcting each other's work, improving it and sharing their
improvements, but he obviously hasn't a clue what can be accomplished in
this way. I'm a full-time, won't-touch-Windows-any-more, Linux man. I
use it for both work and play, and it's performance is stellar. The
point is that if something goes wrong, I can (and have) go into the
source code and fix it.

Now, socketpuppet61 may not be able to, because he probably isn't a
software engineer, but the fact is that it can be done. I would trust
open-source that I could audit long before closed-source. As a matter
of fact, I'm doing exactly that. My engine controller will be a
Megasquirt unit that comes as a kit with open source software. It was
designed for cars, so I will be modifying it to make it more appropriate
for airplane use (mostly just making it simpler).

Amateur built airplanes are the same way. You have the plans. You can
change anything you like. The whole RV line began, because VanGrueson
had an airplane that he liked...except for a few handling issues. Can't
remember the name of the predecessor, and I think I mangled Van's name,
but he had the education, training, skill AND opportunity to fix what
he thought were the problems. The result is the all-time most
successful line of kit built airplanes.

As Ron mentioned, the problem with having people sit down and draw up a
design is that you don't know who's qualified and the end result won't
be seen for years. (With software, the end result can be produced in
minutes.) We do have open-source, though, in that you can cruise down
the homebuilt line at the fly-ins and take pictures of what you consider
good ideas. Talk to the builders and get their opinion of how their
modifications worked out. Maybe click through their web logs to see
what they're doing, and how they're doing it. You'll still need to get
a set of plans for the overall design, but you'll never be limited to
JUST what is in that one set of plans.


Ernest,

If I could find a comfortable CAD program for Linux, I'd join ya.

Richard